1 My friends, whom I love, because God has promised to accept us(inc) as his children, we (inc) must stop doing anything that is sinful. We must not do sinful things with our bodies, and we must not think sinful thoughts. Because we greatly revere God, we must strive to live a completely pure life. By doing that we will become the kind of people that he wants us to be.

2 So, as I just wrote, I want you to love me (OR, us [IDM] who are true apostles of Christ). I/we (exc) have never done anything wrong to any of you. I/we have not done anything to harm any one of you spiritually or financially. And I/we have not tried to get money from you ◄for myself/for ourselves►. 3  It is true that some people among you have said that I have done such things. Nevertheless, I am not trying to make you all feel ashamed because, as I wrote before, I will continue to love you all very much [IDM], whether I live with you or die with you. I am very confident about you. 4 I am very pleased with you. You have greatly encouraged me, so that I am now very joyful in spite of all the hardships that I have endured.

5 Now I will write more about what I was saying about Titus. When I left Troas and came here to Macedonia province, I still did not get any rest. Everywhere we (exc) went, people were constantly causing us trouble. And not only were people constantly causing us trouble, but I was greatly concerned about you all. 6 But God, who always encourages his people when they are discouraged, encouraged us by sending Titus back to us. 7 I was encouraged by seeing Titus, but when I heard how you had encouraged him, that encouraged me even more. He told me how much you wanted to see me. He told me that you were very sorry that you had made me so unhappy. He also told me that you are very eager for me to continue to serve as your apostle. When Titus told me those things, I was very, very happy.

8 Even though what I wrote in my letter ◄distressed you/made you sad►, I am not sorry that I wrote it. For a while I was sorry that I had written it, because I knew that it would distress you. Now Titus has also told me that it did distress you when you read it, but you were distressed only for a short time. 9  So now I am happy that I wrote it. I am not happy that you were distressed {that I distressed you}, but I am happy because, when you became distressed, you felt sorry for what you had done and you asked God to forgive you. What I mean is that you felt sorry in the way that God wanted you to feel sorry, so my making you feel sorry did not harm you at all. 10  The fact is that when God causes us to feel truly sorry for having sinned and we turn from our sinful behavior, then God saves us and will not punish us for the sinful things that we have done. And no one is ever sorry about that. However, the people who do not trust in God [MTY] may be sorry for the sinful things that they have done. But if they do not turn from their sinful behavior and ask God to forgive them, they will remain separated from him forever. 11 But think about what happened when you read my letter: God caused you to be truly sorry for what you had done. You eagerly wanted to do what was right, and you wanted to show God (OR, me) that you had done the right thing. You were angry about what had happened, and you were worried that God would punish you if the situation continued. You also wanted me to visit you to encourage and help you. You wanted me to know that you really do accept me as your apostle, and that you punished the man who had sinned, as I told you to do. By doing all of those things, you have shown me that you have done what is right in this matter. 12 So, even though I wrote that severe letter to you, I did not write it just so that you would punish the man who had done what was wrong. Also, I did not write it for the benefit of the person whom he had wronged. Instead, I wrote it so that, when you read the letter, God would enable you to realize how much you really do respect my authority. 13 So, because you listened to me and did what I asked you to do, ◄I was/we (exc) were all► encouraged. Not only ◄was I/were we► encouraged, but ◄I was/we (exc) were► also very happy to see how happy Titus was when he arrived here. He told me/us that he did not need to worry any more, because he saw that you all had a good attitude toward me. 14 I had told Titus that I was pleased about you. And I did not need to be ashamed for feeling that way about you, because you did what I knew that you would do. Just like everything that I have taught you and written to you has been the truth, the good things that I told Titus about you were also true. 15 Now he happily remembers how you all were willing to do what I asked you to do. He is also happy about the way you treated him with great respect. When he thinks about those things, it makes him love you even more than he did when he was with you. 16  As for me, I am very happy because now I am certain that I can depend on you to do what you know God wants you to do.